I've never particpated in Earth Day before but this year I came up with a challenge idea for our wellness program at work that was to do clean up at the Ballona Wetlands. For those of you who don't know the Ballona Wetlands are the last 100 acres of wetlands in the greater Los Angeles area. They are located here. Click on any picture to make it larger.
They are currently in a legal battle to save it from the Playa Vista 2 development project which includes a shopping center and 2,600 homes. More concrete, less greenspace, more traffic, just what Los Angeles needs.
We started with a brief talk on conservation, recycling, history of the wetlands and the importance of it continuing to exist. It was quite interesting and we were reminded of the Katrina disaster and how preserving the wetlands in Louisiana could have saved them. Wetlands absorbs incoming sea water from tides and out going flood waters. They act like a sponge and clean the water passing through them. Wetlands are also an important bird and animal habitat.
After our chat we continued to our work site, for us this involved removing Acacia trees, an invasive non-native plant species from Africa. Very hard work pushing a wheelbarrow through sand and lopping off and hand sawing branches. But well worth it.
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